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THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CALIFORNIA - This site is dedicated to exposing the continuing Marxist Revolution in California and the all around massive stupidity of Socialists, Luddites, Communists, Fellow Travelers and of Liberalism in all of its ugly forms.

"It was a splendid population - for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home - you never find that sort of people among pioneers - you cannot build pioneers out of that sort of material. It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day - and when she projects a new surprise the grave world smiles as usual and says, "Well, that is California all over."

- - - - Mark Twain (Roughing It)

Friday, April 26, 2013

Bullet train bidder has history of cost overruns

The lowest-bidding partnership for the first segment of California’s high-speed rail line includes a firm with a history of cost overruns and costly lawsuits.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority on Friday announced that the American joint venture of Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons was the “best apparent value” with a low bid of $985 million – below the $1.09 billion bid by the next-lowest bidder.

On construction projects in California, the lowest bidder has a strong advantage in the eventual selection process. Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the authority, declined to comment on bidders as the matter is finding its way to the authority’s board of directors.

“Five world-class teams competed for this opportunity, and the process is ongoing,” Wilcox said.

The first segment of the estimated $68 billion system is proposed to run 28 miles from Madera to Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley.

According to an August report by The Bay Citizen, sister site of California Watch, 11 major projects in the San Francisco Bay Area completed by Tutor in the last dozen years cost local governments $765 million more than they expected, or 40 percent above the initial bids.

A company spokesman did not return a message seeking comment. CEO Ron Tutor said in the August report that attacks against him were unfounded and overruns were caused by contracting agencies changing the projects in midstream.

At San Francisco International Airport, the city alleged in a 2002 lawsuit that the company purposely bid low to win a $626 million expansion contract, then charged $980 million for the job. Tutor said there wasn’t “a single fact” justifying the city’s position but eventually agreed to pay $19 million to settle.

The company’s list of projects includes an extension of Bay Area Rapid Transit to the San Francisco airport, the Alameda Corridor rail line and the San Diego Convention Center.

In 1993, the Port of San Diego paid the company $17 million to settle a $53 million lawsuit over the convention center project. In the lawsuit, the company blamed port-hired construction managers for delays that cost the company money.

Kevin Williams, a former San Francisco contracting officer who has testified in court against Tutor, said his experience with the company goes back decades.

“Tom Bradley, the late mayor of Los Angeles, said it best: Ron Tutor was the change-order artist, the king, and he’s proven himself to be just that,” Williams told U-T San Diego on Monday.

Williams said Tutor “is going to make up the difference somehow by lowballing. That is as old as history itself in the construction industry.”

Kevin Dayton, president and chief executive of Labor Issues Solutions and a critic of the bullet train project, said the rail authority is going to have to monitor change-order requests very closely.

“People are always accusing each other in the construction industry of pulling the change-order racket: winning the low bid and then piling up costs afterward,” said Dayton, a former lobbyist for Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. “Sometimes, it is a matter of architectural errors, but everyone always blames everybody else for it, saying, ‘The drawings were bad; the engineering was bad, et cetera.’ ”

Dayton also questioned whether the four losing teams – who are eligible to be paid a $2 million stipend to cover their costs for seeking the contract – might now be required to sign statements agreeing not to publicly challenge the process.

The next-lowest bidder was Dragados/Samsung/Pulice. Officials there could not be reached for comment.

In a statement posted on its website before the announcement, the team said with a combined value of $8 billion in executed design-build projects in the last five years, it offers the authority and building communities “a proven successful record of compliance, execution and on time delivery of complex infrastructure projects all over the world.”

Five teams submitted proposals to design and build the first segment. The proposals were evaluated and ranked based 70 percent on cost and the remainder for technical merit. Officials said factors such as an understanding of the project, schedule capability, approach and safety were part of the technical scoring.

The lowest-bidding partnership – Tutor Perini Corp. of Sylmar, Zachry Construction Corp. of Texas and Parsons Corp. of Pasadena – received the highest overall score of 90.55 out of 100.

The trio received a perfect 70 percent for its price proposal and received the lowest score – 20.55 – for its technical proposal.

Rail officials say they expect to present a contract to their board of directors in the coming weeks. The agency’s cost estimate for the first segment was $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion.

If they are unable to award the contract to the best-value bidder, they may proceed with the next most highly ranked, officials said.

This story resulted from a partnership among California news organizations following the state's high-speed rail program, including The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Bee, California Watch, The Bakersfield Californian, The Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise, U-T San Diego, KQED, the Merced Sun-Star, The Tribune of San Luis Obispo and The Modesto Bee.

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Paul Gann and Howard Jarvis

Declared "Public Enemies #1 of the People's Republic" for daring to be the Fathers of the modern Taxpayer Revolt in 1978 with Proposition 13 and the Gann Spending Cap. Their crime was to tell the people that they have the right to keep their own money and not turn it over to their Marxist Overlords in Government.

Governor Ronald Reagan

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to balance the budget, support capitalists, oppose Socialism, create jobs and wealth.

U.S. Senator Richard Nixon

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring from day one in office to vigorously and effectively oppose Communism at home and around the world.

Governor Frank Merriam

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to send in National Guardsmen armed and with fixed bayonets and machine guns to put down a Communist Longshoreman's strike and for defeating Socialist Upton Sinclair for Governor in 1934.

U.S. Senator George Hearst

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to show initiative and walk from Missouri to California, for going into farming, business, mining (the Comstock Load), creating wealth with his bare hands out of nothing and providing jobs for the people.

Governor and Senator Leland Stanford

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to Found the California Republican Party in 1856, build the Central Pacific Railroad, create jobs, businesses and wealth. Founder of Stanford University.

Governor Romualdo Pacheco

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for supporting ranchers, gold miners and the capitalist creation of wealth and jobs.

U.S. Senator John C. Fremont

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to support capitalists, gold mining and fight for his country.

About Me

"Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.
Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It is us. Only us.
Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach."
- - - Rorschach, Watchmen (1986)

California Gold Rush (1848 - 1855)

This was a time that is hated with a deep and seething hate by all Socialists, Communists and Statists. During the Gold Rush common men and women sought their fortunes in a new world without the benefit of the wise and learned counsel of overeducated and worthless bureaucrats. People took the task of creating raw wealth into their own hands. No intellectuals were available to lecture the workers about the wonders of the eight hour day, worker's rights, unemployment insurance, workplace rules, "fairness" or early retirement. Intellectuals were neither wanted nor needed because intellectuals do not work for a living. The Intellectual Elite exists to tell everyone how smart they are and how everyone else is doing things wrong. Early California was a place for those who worked for a living.

Central Pacific Railroad

The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) is the former name of the railroad network built between California and Utah that formed part of the "First Transcontinental Railroad". It was rapidly built between 1863 - 1869. The "Golden spike", connecting the western railroad to the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory, Utah, was hammered on May 10, 1869. Coast-to-coast train travel in eight days became possible, replacing months-long sea voyages and lengthy, hazardous travel by wagon trains. This project would never be built today in the Luddite People's Republic. There would be endless delays, environmental impact reports, labor unions, lawyers, court battles and Government Drones blocking every move.

Building the Golden Gate Bridge (1933 - 1937)

Financed and built by California in a record four years. The bridge ranks as one of the great wonders of the world stimulating the economy and creating endless jobs and wealth. Today it would never be built.

The People's Republic of California today

The #1 goal of the all powerful Big Brother State is the Marxist re-distribution of the wealth to the Elite so it can be used to buy votes in the next election. Today jobs and wealth are opposed by the Luddite Socialists because they claim it creates an un-equal society. Modern Californians are living off everything that was built by their ancestors. New projects that might create wealth are furiously opposed by an endless stream of Luddite-Leftist interest groups.

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